If your organization is using old school advertising and marketing techniques, you’re living in the past. The glory days of big budgets are over so if you’re throwing away the few dollars you have on standard commercials, newspaper ads, Yellow Page listings or billboards; you’re wasting your money.

Nowadays kids, there are new channels for reaching patients and not only are they more effective, but they are more easily measured. We constantly preach the importance of tracking the success of your marketing campaigns. As a marketing professional, if you are unable to point to your success, you’re only doing half of your job.

1.Social Media – Use social media campaigns to engage your followers/target market, meaning patients and referring physician offices. You can also create very customizable ad campaigns on various social media websites.

2.Digital TV/Streaming – Traditional TV ads often play on deaf ears now. DVR has helped people fast forward through that expensive ad space, but on sites like Hulu your ads will be seen because viewers cannot skip them.

3.YouTube Advertising – On many videos, ads will play before the video starts. After 5 seconds the user can skip through to the video, but if you catch their attention, they will watch the ad before their video.

4.PPC/Search – PPC campaigns and search campaigns are a great way to get in front of patients that are already searching for practices like yours.

5.Mobile (messaging, display ads or apps) – Walk down the street and you’ll see just about every person glued to their mobile device, so mobile advertising is a great way to get in front of patients.

6.Internet Radio – Spotify, Pandora and Sirius XM have increased their user base exponentially over the last couple of years so this ad space has grown in popularity as well. It’s great because you’re able to deliver a message audibly while also having a visual/interactive ad in front of the user where they can take immediate action, i.e.: signing up for something, liking your page or exploring your website.

7.Advertorials – This is not a new concept but advertorials are basically “sponsored” articles written by someone who is promoting their own services or product. They are designed to look like articles but they are really advertising pieces. Buzzfeed is well known for this but newspapers and blogs regularly utilize these as well.

Looking to try something new to reach a different patient base this year? Consider implementing a couple of these initiatives into your marketing plan!